[HN Gopher] Growing sodium chloride crystals at home
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Growing sodium chloride crystals at home
Author : behnamoh
Score : 175 points
Date : 2024-05-16 15:24 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (crystalverse.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (crystalverse.com)
| NaOH wrote:
| Previous discussion:
|
| _How to grow sodium chloride crystals at home_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29255511 - Nov 2021 (184
| comments)
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I did it in the first or second grade after the teacher showed us
| how to.
| hyping9 wrote:
| Hilarious what passes for essentially kindergarten-level
| entertainment now finds its way to the front page of HN. Oh how
| the mighty have fallen.
| gus_massa wrote:
| In kindergarten you can grow a bunch of interlocked small
| crystals. It's difficult to make a nice big one, as a sibling
| comment complains.
|
| (We made a big one in high school, but it was AlK(SO4)2
| instead of NaCl. They have a different shape. I'm not sure if
| they have other properties that make it easier. Kids may
| drink or eat it, I'm not sure if AlK(SO4)2 is safe enough for
| kindergarten. It was a side project that took a few month.)
|
| The article here is the "advanced" version that is necesary
| to make big crystals. These kind of stuff usualy get traction
| here since forever, so it's not surprising that it got to the
| front page (multiple times). (Bonus points for nice photos.)
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Despite seeing this before it's always a joy to be brought back
| to this site. It feels like the old internet did in terms of
| content, but has the high quality presentation that the modern
| internet is capable of. It's a real treat.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| Tried growing them after this post made it to the HN last time.
|
| Killed about two months on this and nothing good came out of it.
| Got _some_ crystals, sure, but definitely nothing that is even in
| the same ballpark as in the post.
|
| It all sounds simple, in principle, but requires skills and
| experience. Like making a good carbonara or decent croissants.
| It's all in the technique.
| amelius wrote:
| > It's all in the technique.
|
| Sounds like the technique was not fully documented then.
| aredox wrote:
| This post didn't dwelve on the fact your water needs to be pure
| - if you've got hard water, it's not going to work.
|
| Try again but with demineralized water - often sold in
| supermarkets to avoid scaling in clothing irons.
| amelius wrote:
| You might also want to look into the effect of vibrations in
| the room where your experiment takes place.
| fallingsquirrel wrote:
| Would distilled water work or does it need to specifically be
| "demineralized"?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Distilled water is fine. Demineralized is normally cheaper
| and also fine.
| ldoughty wrote:
| Distilled water is effectively demineralized... Not
| perfect... technically it's collected steam from boiling
| water, so it kills most bacteria and leaves most other
| material or minerals that can't be carried by steam.
| fallingsquirrel wrote:
| I hadn't considered that steam could carry tiny particles
| of minerals, but it's obvious now that you point it out.
| So demineralized water would probably be closer to pure
| H2O. I've never noticed demineralized water at my grocery
| store, but maybe that's just because I've never looked.
| But I will next week!
| huhtenberg wrote:
| I did use demineralized water!
| cess11 wrote:
| Then I'd guess they grew too fast, or the salt was
| unsuitable somehow, maybe iodised, maybe an anti-caking
| agent.
|
| Growing crystals like in the article requires low enough
| ambient temperature that they can grow for a month or more
| without running out of water.
| hex4def6 wrote:
| I wonder if it's a container cleanliness issue. I can imagine
| dishwasher detergent residue might leave trace chemicals that
| mess up the formation.
|
| I also wonder if the smoothness of the container has an effect.
| A rough surface might encourage lots of seed sites.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Yes, this is an issue, with more than just soap residue.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| At the very least, all containers used for growing crystals
| should pass the water break test. That requires
| substantially better cleaning than a casual wipe down with
| an old sponge & some dish soap.
| andrewla wrote:
| Did you document your failure? I'm honestly curious -- the
| author of the post mentions some of their false starts, but I
| think a description of what you tried and what didn't work
| could be valuable (even if you didn't do an extensive root
| cause analysis). There are a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacks
| here trying to suggest what you did wrong, but unless someone
| has tried and failed themselves I don't think there's a lot of
| value in the feedback.
| Levitating wrote:
| I've had really good results using this guide. Grew some proper
| crystals.
|
| Getting the evaporation right is important. It can't be too
| fast or too slow. I grew my crystals in a closet.
| amelius wrote:
| I want to know how to grow a silicon ingot at home.
| creshal wrote:
| Easy:
|
| 1. Build a quartz crucible inside an inert argon atmosphere
|
| 2. Heat it to 2600F/1400C
|
| 3. Melt your highly pure silicon in it
|
| 4. Add in a seed at the top that the rest of the silicon can
| crystalize around
|
| 5. Now comes the tricky part that requires some
| experimentation: Pull out the seed very carefully while
| rotating it, so that an ingot forms around it as you keep
| pulling
| bjackman wrote:
| An even easier approach: if you want a 40cm ingot, you can
| just take a 80cm one that you grew before, and cut it in half
| LoganDark wrote:
| How do you cut it?
| jiggawatts wrote:
| With a diamond saw.
|
| Step one to making one of those is to compress and heat
| some carbon...
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I genuinely think that was one of the more amusing
| exchanges I found on HN. There is just such a weird level
| of.. it could very well be a deadpan joke, but also a
| well-meaning, helpful response.
| exe34 wrote:
| it's like the advice on how to become a millionaire.
| start with a billion dollars, and start investing.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| This made me realize that I don't mind humor in HN
| comments when they're genuinely clever.
|
| This is opposed to what you often see on Reddit where the
| "funny" comments are just chains of some meme/common
| phrase and display no ingenuity (though, to be fair, I
| did once find those comments funny).
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Followed your instructions, but I can't seem to get a wafer
| size larger than about 88cm diameter. What am I doing wrong?
| Can anyone help?
| creshal wrote:
| Well, clearly your first problem is that you want it to be
| that large in the first place. 30cm ought to be enough for
| everyone, if it's good enough for TSMC it's good enough
| you.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Everyone knows TSMC can't make the newest AI chips that
| have to multiply a 1,000,000,000x1,000,000,000 matrix
| every clock cycle. What if you're trying to compete with
| Nvidia?
| Bene592 wrote:
| Even 5 cm is more than enough for home use, or do you
| know a chip that is bigger?
| kaibee wrote:
| https://www.cerebras.net/product-chip/
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| Who, then, can make them?
| Strawberry76 wrote:
| I hadn't seen this before. Will definitely try it. Knowing in
| advance that it might not work out.
| fp64 wrote:
| When I read about growing crystals online, I always have to think
| of the old 4chan "prank" that under the promise of beautiful
| crystals instructs the unsuspecting reader to brew some
| chloramine gas.
|
| Safe for Work screenshot of post: https://imgur.com/IKQRKqv
| throwup238 wrote:
| If I remember correctly it originated on the private site
| LUElinks before spreading.
|
| ...which I just found out shutdown last year. RIP
| accrual wrote:
| It's still alive in some form - the user database was
| migrated and old accounts can be accessed on the new site
| through a per-user token. If you had an account you may still
| be able to get the token and get into the new site. I haven't
| finished the transfer myself, though.
| rexpop wrote:
| This seems like Attempted Murder.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Nah, bro, it's just a prank.
|
| On a more serious note, it's a small wonder sodium
| hypochlorite is not yet regulated as, say, potassium
| permanganate, considering its various uses.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Technically, everything can be used to kill.
|
| You can stuff toilet paper into someones mouth until they
| choke to death on it.
|
| Should we regulate the sale of toilet paper to prevent
| potential murders?
| Joker_vD wrote:
| I don't know, should we? Over here, potassium
| permanganate became a regulated substance only about 10
| years ago so I wouldn't be surprised if in 10 more years,
| sodium hypochlorite too stops being sold over the
| counter.
|
| Now, lest this comment of mine becomes too upvoted, here
| is another controversial take to counterbalance it: some
| things can be used almost exclusively only to kill
| people, like guns, unlike knives. Yes, you can stab or
| cut someone with a knife, but you can stab or cut many
| other things than humans for useful and helpful effects
| while the gun allows you too... put small, deep holes
| into things from a distance, with not-so-great accuracy?
| At the very best, you can sit in an arm-chair with your
| hair-trigger and a hundred Boxer cartridges, and proceed
| to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V.R. done in
| bullet-pocks, but I feel strongly that neither the
| atmosphere nor the appearance of your room would be
| improved by it.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| This is pretty funny, though I hope nobody actually tried this.
| ncr100 wrote:
| to be clear this may kill you and any other nearby people
| jononor wrote:
| Anyone got resources on how to grow crystal that are
| piezoelectric? Would be awesome to grow my own microphone or
| accelerometer.
| pebm wrote:
| Look up making Rochelle's salt, it's relatively straightforward
| to carry out in a kitchen using essentially the same equipment
| outlined in this article.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Grow these around led bulbs...if that would work. For better
| visuals.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I don't know if it would work but it could be cool to have the
| individual filaments encased in crystal, something like these:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/PRETYZOOM-100pcs-LED-Filament-Incande...
| anothername12 wrote:
| Is there a maximum size for a crystal?
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| The first step says to use sea salt. I thought the defining
| feature of sea salt is that it was going to be a collection of
| minerals that happened to be dissolved in the ocean water
| collected that day.
|
| Practically speaking I assume little impact, but would you not
| want to start with more pure NaCl?
| andrewla wrote:
| This was posted before ages ago, and I suspect I know the answer,
| but I have to ask -- has anyone here successfully done this?
|
| I had grand designs to use ethanol as an anti-solvent to
| accelerate crystal growth, and I bet you can guess how much
| progress I made towards that goal. Maybe I've lost my hacker mojo
| entirely and should be expelled from this site forever.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_chloride#cite_ref-28
| Levitating wrote:
| Yes I've grown some great salt crystals using this guide and
| little effort.
| yehat wrote:
| That's great, but does anyone knows similarly accessible way of
| growing a fluorite crystal?
| janci wrote:
| I accidentally grew some big crystals from copper plating
| electrolyte (copper sulfate). Nice blue color.
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